July 20, 2015 Monday, 16th Week in Ordinary
Time 1st Reading:
Exodus 14: 5-18
Gospel: Mt 12:38–42
Some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign, but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the monster fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the depths of the earth. “At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and here there is greater than Solomon.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Today’s Gospel reading taken from chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel is also found in chapter 16. In both instances Jesus’ enemies pressures him to perform some signs. Malice of Jesus’ malefactors are more pronounced in chapter 16 where the Sadducees and the Pharisees come to Jesus to ask if he would perform a sign to test him.
Why did they make such demands? No Rabbi matched Jesus in the performance of signs. None but Jesus brought dead people back to life, freed demoniacs from evil possession and healed prolonged sicknesses. These notwithstanding, they still needed extraordinary signs from Jesus as a condition for their allegiance. No doubt, their intention was to trap Jesus.
We too love to manipulate God. But were God to give in to our manipulations, still we wouldn’t grow spiritually because we’d be clinging to God as our milking cow, not as a Master to whose Will we bow.
To the demands for heavenly signs, Jesus’ answer was the sign of Jonah who stayed in the belly of a whale for three days. Jonah’s story prefigured Jesus’ Passion and Death. Just as the experience of Jonah led to the conversion of the people of Nineveh, so the Passion of Jesus that led to his death but culminated in his resurrection after three days should lead us to living out God’s way. This is God’s priority, not the sensitization of his people with extraordinary signs. Talk of extraordinary things, what is more extraordinary than the sight of evil people returning to God and bowing in repentance to His designs? In the Book of Numbers God said to Moses: “How long will you refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?” (Numbers 14:11-12) – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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